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Transparency laws obscured by technology

The Lakeland Ledger reports that the old-fashioned “image of smoke-filled rooms where politicians gather to plot in secret has been replaced by the blur of fingers flying on handheld devices sending text messages between lawmakers, lobbyists and others trying to do the public’s business in private.”

“While state laws requiring elected officials to maintain records of any documents related to their governing work are among the nation’s strictest, they they did not anticipate the new range of instant messaging, from Twitter “tweets” to PIN-to-PIN exchanges between Blackberrys. The law has not been updated since 1995.”